CSA Newsletter, July 18, 2020

Keegen, Cale and Ashleh in a sea of beans, and that can only mean...

IN YOUR SHARE THIS WEEK ARE:

GREEN BEANS!

Do you know how many idioms there are for beans? After reading the newsletter you will!

ZUCCHINI/SUMMER SQUASH

Our Summer squash is called Zephyr. Do you know why?

CUCUMBERS - NEW!

Are you keeping as cool as?

KALE - TUSCAN (AKA DINOSAUR KALE)

Have you massaged your kale today?

CARROTS

Can you eat carrot tops? That is the question...

RAINBOW CHARD - MULTICOLORED STEMS

Roy G. Biv?

LETTUCE

Green leaf?

Or Red Crisphead?

GARLIC

A kitchen staple - no questions asked!

BASIL

Pesto anyone?

STORAGE TIPS: Quick dunk, rinse and store in plastic or veggie-keeper bag. Out of necessity we have been refrigerating basil and it's working pretty well. Garlic can stay on the counter for up to a week and then refrigerate. Carrots keep their crispness if stored without the tops - so what to do with the tops?.....

RECIPE IDEAS: Last week we reported that there have been concerns about carrot top toxicity due to the presence of alkaloids and nitrates to which some people can be sensitive. CARROT TOPS are not inherently toxic to most of us unless we eat them by the wheelbarrow-full. And you won't find a wheelbarrow-full in your share - at least not yet! ;-)

We revisited the "carrot top controversy" after a customer at the stall took great pains to describe to us how she blanched the carrot tops and regularly added them to her salad. Hailing from Europe, where apparently carrot tops are traditionally consumed without concerns, this customer convinced us to be more open-minded about including the carrot tops in our cooking. A quick Google search brought many recipes for Carrot Top Pesto. We particularly like the linked recipe because it uses your carrots and your carrot tops and your garlic and your basil! 

And although from China, not from Europe, this recipe for "The Genius Salad Green You're Probably Throwing Away (No, It's Not Poisonous)" will give you a good idea and photo of what carrot greens in salad might look like. After every market we have a big crate of carrot tops because so many customers tell us to "take the tops off, please"! Another vendor takes them for her chickens but now we have some other ideas. (We'll share with the chickens!)

The question about KALE in the kale photo caption was not a mistake. "Massaged Kale" used to sound like a slightly uncomfortable approach to this trending vegetable. Perhaps someone's desperate attempt to to wrestle these seemingly ubiquitous greens into manageable submission? But that was then! Now you can find versions of Massaged Kale at every pot luck, varying from the lightly touched Kale Salad to a robust, dark green vegetative mass, recipient of a Kale Swedish Massage! 

Massaged Kale is just that, hands-on squeezing and kneading of raw kale, along with salt and a little olive oil, until the fibrous structure breaks down and becomes more tender and digestible. Massaging kale also reduces the volume, so that your large bunch of kale suddenly becomes a small bowl of salad! Dressings and add-ons are endless - check out the link, try a few Frog Holler favorites (page 28 in your recipe book), do a little experimenting, and find what works for you. If you have a favorite, let us know and we will share!

And if you like the idea of roughing up your KALE , try this Super Green Vegan Kale Pesto. The author says you can use carrot tops to sub for parsley!

Veggies starting to add up? If your vegetable volume is getting ahead of you and some veggie members of last week's shipment are looking a little tired, turn them into your own soup stock. It's also a good way to use parts of the vegetable that you wouldn't ordinarily cook, so nothing gets wasted. We made some soup stock this week using the ends of garlic scapes, some onion sprouts, kale stems, parsley and basil stems, mushroom stems, and (of course) carrot tops! The aroma in the house was wonderful and the stock will be strained and frozen in ice cube trays to simply pop out a cube or two when needed. We generally let vegetable trimmings accumulate for a while, tossing them into a plastic bag in the freezer until we have enough to flavor a stock. 

BEANS - Not much to say yet about the summer's first bean harvest - except that it won't be its last! Our backs are getting stronger as we spend hours bowing down in harvest homage to the mighty bean! Time spent in the bean patch has given this newsletter's author time to consider the many ways that bean imagery has settled into our everyday vocabulary. More than you might think! And you can discover how many bean sayings there are with this fun little diversion: Bean There Done That. Feel free to email if you're stumped for an answer. :-)

NOTES FROM THE FARM: The garlic harvest documented in last week's newsletter is almost complete, literally "hanging from the rafters" in our pole barn. 

Cale and Keegen with garlic party decorations!

And although the crew is generally hard-working, all tasks ground to a halt this week as they tried to solve the puzzle! How did you do? Send us a screenshot of your completed puzzle and enter the drawing to win a beautiful organic Frog Holler flower bouquet to be added to your next share. Entries close next Thursday. 

Have a great week everyone and happy solving!